In the U.S. patents to Suominen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,858,382 and No. 3,973,376, there is disclosed a bag support apparatus including a shaft that passes through aligned apertures in a plurality of stacked plastic bags. The top portion of the front wall of each bag has an aperture that is sufficiently large to easily pass an enlarged flange that is affixed to the free end of the shaft. Thus, when the front edge of a bag is pulled outwardly, the flange passes through the large aperture in the front wall and a corresponding smaller aligned aperture in the rear wall catches on the flange so that the bag may be held in an open position to easily receive articles. After the bag is loaded, the bag is pulled in a forward direction with sufficient force to distend the smaller rear aperture so that the flange is passed through the rear aperture, and the bag is disengaged from the sleeve.
The bag support apparatus of the prior art tends to be somewhat complicated in construction, thereby resulting in higher manufacturing costs. In addition, the prior art apparatus has the added disadvantage that when a stack of bags is removed from the supporting sleeve, it is not particularly easy or convenient to place a new stack of bags in supporting engagement with the sleeve. Accordingly, it is a primary object of the invention to provide a simple, relatively inexpensive and effective means for supporting a stack of bags for easy loading and for quickly and efficiently applying a new stack of bags after the bags in the previous stack have been used.